The Magic of Reality, Richard Dawkins

I bought this book as an iphone app (£9.99 in the UK). It's an excellently made app which combines illustrations, animations and text. I'm up to chapter 8 of 12 at present and I'll save a full review until I've finished it. However, after a disappointing start, I must say it's picking up pace and I'm enjoying it.

I'm actually listening to the audio book currently and well into it. It starts rather simply, which is to me a little disappointing too as a seasoned educated adult, but gets better as you go along. That said, the whole thing so far is great and perfect for younger audiences. I want to say Dawkins intended it to be this way, with some of the simplicity. But it's great. I was thinking of buying the hard copy also to do the same.

What threw me off listening to it is occasional vocabulary and sentence construction. Certainly not too complex, but there are definitely some constructions that are well beyond my daughter's 6th grade reading curriculum for example. I suppose that's what one would expect from Dawkins creating a book for 9y olds +. I think this is a very good thing though.

Actually I bought it today for her and made a day out of it after having thanksgiving lunch with her at her school (she doesn't live with me). I knew she would get a lot out of it. I first noticed the targeted audience statement on the back as you mentioned. Then we looked through the book together before buying it. Of course I had no idea just listening to the audio how beautiful this book is. Full color artwork and illustrations on basically every page... and really interesting ones too. Absolutely brilliant for someone like my daughter, visually and intellectually.

She's bringing it to school tomorrow to 'show it off', hah. We'll see what happens. She was hesitant at first and wondering if she should being that she lives in a very religious area, and all but one of her friends are religious. But I asked her, "Do people pray at your school?" She said yes, and so I said, "Well, you can definitely bring a book to your school then!"

I got it in hardback for my young nephew - a very bright 7 year old and his first comment was “there are only 272 pages so it can’t cover everything in reality can it?” He is now telling al his school friends about “the real world”. I am waiting to hear what his teachers have to say!! The artwork is very good. It is a good introduction to many subjects.

I only discovered that it was aimed at children and young adults after I read it. I'm quite glad about this as I don't think I'd have enjoyed it as much. As you might expect, it's a fairly straightforward read. That said, I learnt some new things, including exactly what a rainbow is. And I'm always fascinated by the comparative size of things in our universe (the iPad version has a fabulous zoomable animation comparing earth to the largest known star).

The book covers a number of subjects:

What is reality? What is magic?
Who was the first person?
Why are there are so many different kinds of animals?
What are things made of?
Why do we have night and day, summer and winter?
what is the sun?
What is a rainbow?
When and how did everything begin?
Are we alone?
What is an earthquake?
Why do bad things happen?
What is a miracle?

Most chapters follow a similar format: a brief look at at how myths (religions) answered the question, followed by a straightforward description of how science has now shown the truth of the matter.

He was, of course, preaching to the converted (not a phrase used much on this site!) in me but nevertheless I enjoyed the experience of reading the book - especially in the iPad format.

8/10 from me for an informative and easy going romp through some interesting questions.